Tag Flowers

Now You See It

Michael Leave a comment

The older you get the fewer chances you have to say, “I never thought I’d see that.” It only makes sense that eventually you indeed will have seen everything. Fortunately mankind’s ability to invent, innovate, and improve is boundless. And thus recently, I again had the opportunity to say to myself, “Self, now you’ve seen everything.”

I was out taking a leisurely ride through the local environs when I happened down a road I had never been. This wasn’t a country road or a residential drive. It was a rather short yet well-traveled avenue but for some reason I never had a reason to use it neither to get from here to there nor to patronize any of the less than handful of businesses thereon occupied. There is a mechanic’s shop, an insurance agent, a paint store, and a florist. It was the flower shop that held me awestruck and although it wasn’t as significant say as when man walked on the moon, what I saw was up there. Well, not up there by the moon, actually not anyway at all in space. It was figuratively “up there.” Sort of. Especially if you are having a mentally slow day and can’t come up with a good phrase to end the sentence. Anyway, that flower shop (or ‘Shoppe’ as the marquee proclaimed), was breaking new retail floral ground. It has — are you ready for this? — it has — you really should be sitting down — it has — drum roll please — a drive through window!

Yes, florists are reaching the level of banks, pharmacies, beer distributors, automatic car washes, quickie oil change places, and fast food restaurants showing that thoughtfulness and gentility can also be speedy and convenient. Now you can arrive home with a bouquet of flowers, the perfect apology for whatever you did last night, without having to bear the embarrassment of actually getting out of your car and going into the supermarket floral department and/or counter. No longer do you have an excuse for not bringing your boss’s weird wife a hostess gift just because you were running late to get there for the dinner you’d rather be anywhere other than because the two of you couldn’t decide on a believable excuse for not going. (Ditto for your wife’s weird boss.) And now when you are hit with the question of what to bring for a fourth date while sitting at the red light three blocks from her house you realize your answer is just a short U-turn away.

Style, culture, elegance at the speed of pull around to the first window please. Now I’ve seen everything.

That’s what I think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Seven Days

Michael Leave a comment

There are seven days until Spring!  Yes, we know it snowed overnight.  Yes, we know the temperature fell to about eight degrees this morning.  Yes, we know that the northern half of the United States still looks like it’s in the Ice Age.  The good news is that we really still are in the most recent Ice Age and regardless of what it looks like outside, Spring will be here in seven days!  Hey, forgive us if we want to be a little fanatical about it.  You try hanging out in a freezer for five months and not go a little stir crazy.

Even with the new snow and single digit air temperatures there are signs that Spring really is coming.  Locally we actually had a day with the air temperatures higher than sixty degrees!  Now that we are finally getting some warmer days along with the colder nights, sap is running to make our real maple syrup.  Trees are budding out.  Crocuses are starting to push their way through where the soil isn’t completely frozen.  Stores have given up on St. Patrick’s Day decorations and expanded the Easter displays.  Daylight Saving Time is in place in the places that observe Daylight Saving Time.  And non-fat people are starting to wear shorts.  (Ok, so most of them are Mr. Machos trying to prove that they still have the legs of a high school football star – they don’t – but it’s still a sign of Spring.)

What will you do to see that Spring is welcome at your place next week?  We have a few suggestions.

  • Open a window, open a door, let some fresh air in the house.  It might be cold fresh air but you’ll feel fresher for it.
  • Buy some fresh flowers. (No, fresh is not necessarily going to be the theme.  It’s just a coincidence.)  Find a vase, a ribbon, and a place of honor and see Spring bloom before you.
  • Women, buy new espadrilles.  Men, new boat shoes.  When the Spring rains come do your imitation of Debbie Reynolds and/or Gene Kelley and put those new shoes to work.
  • Buy a hat.  Both of you.
  • Put the top down, open the sun roof, or crank down the windows on your way to work tomorrow.  Don’t worry if it’s still not the warmest day of the year so far.  We’ve gone topless in snow squalls and lived to tell about it.
  • Go fly a kite.
  • Make this year’s resolutions.
  • Grow something from seed.  Flower, herb, veggie.  When you are harvesting it later this year you’ll remember that you started it all yourself.
  • Eat something outside.  It could be a full meal of yours that you have prepared.  It could be from a food truck that you wonder how they prepared that in there.  It could be a hot dog on a stick.  Get outside and let your memory recall all of last year’s al fresco moments while you get ready for this year’s.

That should take about a week and before you know it you’ll be getting ready for summer.  But that’s a post for a different day.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?